Obama, Benghazi, and American Decline

It is admittedly not easy to stand in judgment of a religion or to question a world faith with adherents numbering in the billions, but when events occur in incessant and systemic fashion, an unending sequence of violent episodes and tirades, in every region and corner where Muslim concentrations are great enough, then, perhaps, it becomes necessary.

It is also not easy to acknowledge one’s own incompetence when one is President, the feckless unreality of an administration’s policies, the trumping of ideology over truth, the bloated self regard of its commander-in-chief, its misguided devotion to “soft power,” and the folly of playing one Islamist against another, as if there really was something called moderate Islam. 

It may just be that for now the best we can hope for in the Muslim world is more Hosni Mubaraks, but it is perhaps too late even for that, for the age of the secular Arab/Muslim dictator at least marginally sympathetic to Western interests, may have passed and in its place, post Arab Spring, have come theocratic regimes far worse, who are not in the least predisposed to democratic affectations.

It was also, no doubt, not easy for President Barack Hussein Obama, who boasted at every campaign pit stop that he had killed Osama bin Laden and had al Qaeda on the run, to watch its flag fly over our diplomatic missions after murdering our Ambassador to Libya and three others. 

That the embassy had warned of terrorist threats, that the Benghazi consulate had been bombed in June, that requests for additional security were made previously, and that multiple appeals for help were ignored during the attack, point to an Administration very much in denial – and worse. 

Obama, who is felt in certain quarters to be a transformative figure, has long believed in his own unique, historic significance; as the biracial man who had grown up in Indonesia, understood the third world, the poor, and Islam, and being of the left, that he could resolve the intractable conflicts of the Middle East and elsewhere, where everyone else had failed. 

This he would achieve by speaking in conciliatory tones, by understanding the Arab world, by apologizing for his nation, by distancing himself from Israel, by engaging our enemies, and, perhaps, most importantly, by simply being... Him. 

Then the troubled regions of the world would fall under his pleasing spell, respond gently to his outstetched hands and kindly words, and enter his benevolent tent with gladness and contentment...

It is the conceit of utopianists (and particularly Obama) to think this way, not recognizing the ancient furies unleashed through the centuries, the historical jealousies, the bitter resentment by Islam after 500 years of Western ascendancy, its searing sense of inferiority, the Islamic Caliphate shattered, its grand Empires broken, having little to do really with George Bush or Israel, who are only relatively recent thorns, but an all-consuming memory (and wrath) over some 1400 years of war and bloodshed, glory and triumph, conquest and then defeat at the hands of the infidel, of thwarted ambitions and religious imperatives that demand reprisal and subjugation, not compromise and conciliation with the West.

Obama’s delusions, in other words, meant nothing to Islamists.

And so the man who had fist pumped over the killing of Osama, convinced that he, the liberal warrior had vanquished al Qaeda, watched, perhaps, in stunned disbelief, as his ambassador to Libya and three others were murdered, the consulate burned, the embassy in Cairo overrun, sovereign American soil violated, our flags torched and replaced by the banner of Islam, on the anniversary of 9/11 – and did nothing.

Everywhere throughout the administration and its media appendage there was panic with the realization that Obama, the historic President, had failed; that despite the apologies, his pin point drone attacks, his overtures to Iran, his withdrawal from Iraq (thusly giving it over to Iran), his embrace of the Arab Spring, his dumping of Mubarak, his hostility to Israel, even his middle name - none of it had mattered for our enemies still despised us. 

His fanciful claim to have vanquished terrorism after killing Bin Laden was shown to be a myth.  Furthermore, Obama's war in Libya, felt to be a foriegn policy success, could now be challenged.

What followed, of course, was the cover-up: the effort to conceal the failure of the administration's policies - at least until after the election.

Content to abandon fellow Americans to their fate before predatory Muslim terrorists, the administration then saw fit to concoct the insane folk tale that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the planned, military-style, terrorist operation that led to the death of an Ambassador, replete with mortars, RPGs, and automatic weapons was “spontaneous,” a mob reaction to a YouTube video clip released months before that no one had even seen or heard of. 

This notwithstanding real-time emails sent to the State Department and copied to the White House, Pentagon, FBI, and Director of National Intelligence, as the attack was occurring, indicating that it was, indeed, a terrorist action and that the al Qaeda linked group Ansar al-Sharia had claimed responsibility.

This notwithstanding a diplomatic cable from Stevens himself the day of the assault informing the government that security at the consulate had been breached and requesting assistance, along with drone and compound surveillance cameras sending images of the assault that demonstrated an organized attack. 

This despite US intelligence that reported within a day of the assault that it was pre-planned and tied to al-Qaeda affiliates.

This combined with all the evidence in the months leading up to the attack illustrating clearly that organized anti-Western activity in Libya was on the rise (the assassination attempt on the British Ambassador and closure of the British consulate and International Red Cross offices, among many other incidents) and that militants were known to be targeting Ambassador Stevens.

Despite all this, the Obama administration, tied to its ideology and the ridiculous myth that it had succeeded where everyone else had failed, that it had effectively ended Islamic terror and that Muslims the world over now adored America (with Obama as President, of course), in a moment of denial, deception, and twisted rationalization, trotted out White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice (who has no jurisdiction in this matter at all), CIA Director David Petraeus, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the President himself during a speech at the UN to invoke the canard that a YouTube video was responsible for the violence, blaming its own citizens and not the perpetrators of the attacks, even as it knew it was entirely false.  It even used taxpayer dollars to buy advertising in Pakistan denouncing the video. The partisan media, faithful to its party and President, went along for the ride. 

The transparent charade lasted a full two weeks before the backlash against it had grown and the administration began backpedalling. 

When Obama and his advisors learned of the attack in Benghazi real-time, they refused aid to avoid an unpleasant scene right before an election, and particularly one that might call into question the wisdom of his foreign policy; Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans were, in effect, yielded as an offering to al Qaeda. 

The administration and its media appendage then ludicrously promoted the narrative, knowing it was false, that some obscure, amateur video was the cause of the violence, the innocent producer carted off in the middle of the night by federal authorities, his face covered, cameras rolling, his family now at risk; he, too, was sacrificed to pacify Angry Muslims. 

The media and the administration celebrated his jailing, refusing to protect an American citizen and his first amendment rights, thereby making an offering, too, of our Bill of Rights, to the vengeful armies of Islam.

Islamists though will not be appeased, no matter how often the President bows before the Saudi King, insults Israel, placates the mullahs, and degrades his nation, until the flag of Islam flutters not in Libya but over our own Capitol.

It is tragic to observe America under Obama, a pallid, sickly nation, actively pursuing decline and impotence.